Just a short train ride away from Torino is the city of Alba. Alba is known primarily for two things. The first, Alba is home to the headquarters of the Ferrero confectionery group. If you’ve ever slathered heaps of Nutella hazelnut spread on anything or popped a Tic Tac before a date, you’ve got Ferrero to thank. Unfortunately, we didn’t have the time to tour the factory.In addition to Ferrero, Alba is famous for its wine production. This makes it the perfect location for a wine festival. I, as well as several other exchange students from Torino, caught an early train to the small city and purchased our wine passes. For 20 Euro, you get to choose 15 different glasses of wine from local and famous vineyards as well as receive your own wine glass and wine-glass-holder. The wine glass holder actually came in handy as the festival was set up all around the city in different piazzas. After tasting 3-4 wines in one piazza, you have to walk through the city to the next piazza for the next 3-4, and so on. By the 15th wine, you will have walked around the entire town. After a quick brunch of white truffle poached eggs and toast from a nearby tent, we began tasting the wines. I’m surely no wine connoisseur, but just asking the workers for “qualcosa buono” (English: “Something good”) I was able to experience some of the differences that many people are trained to put into words (such as, “notes of Mulberry*, etc.”). In total, we explored Alba for nearly 8 hours leisurely strolling through the town whilst sipping delicious wines before catching a train back to Torino and finishing the night off with a hamburger in a nearby Irish pub. Overall, a phenomenal way to spend a Saturday with some great people.
*I have no idea what a mulberry is. It just sounds like something a wine connoisseur might say.
Leave a Reply